PROPAGANDA FAILING IN INDIES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 30, 30 October 1942, Page 5

PROPAGANDA FAILING IN INDIES

Japanese And Natives TERRORIST TACTICS OF CONQUERORS (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Australian Correspondent.) ‘SYDNEY, October 29. The Japanese were encountering serious economic problems in the Netherlands East Indies, said a young Dutch army officer who has reported at General MacArthur’s headquarters after escaping from Batavia. Great industries had been choked by lack of shipping. The natives were disillusioned, but passive. European and natives alike queued np at public kitchens for vegetable soup and rice. The big' towns in Java were strongly garrisoned by enemy troops. The Jap-. anese soldiers spent all day in training and physical culture. After the Japanese occupied the island they adopted terrorist tactics, and commonly beat up people to get information. Europeans in essential services were left to work, but most were interned. A few months ago all Europeans at one large centre were interned, because the Japanese said they were not co-operating. Though allowed to go free, European women were not allowed to receive cash when their personal funds were exhausted, and they were forced on toi the public kitchens set xip by the Japanese. Cruel Punishment. The enemy’s “Asia for the Asiatics” propaganda, directed at natives had been greatly offset by the disillusionment brought by their harsh treatment and cruel punishment for minor looting. One form of Japanese punishment for this offence was to tie a heavy weight around the native’s shoulders, tie his hands behind hia back, and put a noose around his neck so that he would strangle himself when he fell exhausted. Throughout the Netherlands East Indies the Dutch language could not be used officially and letters must be written in Malayan. Newspapers were published in Malayan by natives under Japanese supervision. The enemy attitude was that the war In Java had finished. There was no black-out and all air-raid, shelters had been demolished, but par ties, of Dutch troops still operated in the mountains. Quislings Interned. DURBAN, October 28. Dutchmen who have just escaped, from the East Indies say that all male Europeans aged from 16 to 60 have been interned. Women and children are free, but they have no resources, and the children are not allowed to go to schools. ■ The strict rationing, with forced labour and lower pay, which the Japanese imposed caused great discontent among the natives. The general poverty led to an epidemic of thefts, to which the Japanese replied Jby cutting off the hands of suspects, or by publie exceptions. The Dutchmen Stated that quislings, whom the Dutch interned at the time of the invasion of Holland, were at first freed and then reinterned by the Japanese.

GENERAL’S DEATH (Received October 29, 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 28. Tokio radio announced the death of Lieutenant-General Ttshinari Maeda, commander-in-chief in Borneo, in an air crash off the north coast of Borneo on September -5. Lieutenant-General Matsataka Yanawaki succeeds him.